Uber will be available more and more in the Chapala area. I use it to send documents between my Chapala and Guadalajara offices and they usually arrive within 10 minutes and charge is 250 pesos average so a great bargain for us and we can present and receive documents same day and not waste time on the road.

I have seen up to 7 Ubers in Chapala at one time, so be patient and with more use there will be more cars, only bad thing might be if local drivers are used to drive to the city, maybe they can have certain ones only take local trips to keep them in the area.

Intercasa wrote:Uber will be available more and more in the Chapala area. I use it to send documents between my Chapala and Guadalajara offices and they usually arrive within 10 minutes and charge is 250 pesos .

Do they just take the documents and the driver delivers them to whoever you say, or do they take someone there?

The drivers arent used to it but I give them an envelope with my card and say someone will be outside waiting for them at the destination and then watch and when the drive is 2 blocks away I call the other office and they come out. I give them the type, color and plates of the car. Beats driving round trip and wasting time.

We used UBER last night for the first time to attend an event in Chapala. It worked great. I ordered the driver at 6:15pm to pick us up in Ajijic. He arrived in 20 minutes. I ordered another driver to take us home from The Beer Garden in Chapala at 11:00pm. He arrived in 9 minutes. The trip was 60 pesos each way. This is the future......

Fantastic! Exactly what we have needed here for a long time, inexpensive, RELIABLE, taxi service. I hope all the lazy, lying taxistas that didn't show up for me, after saying they would, go broke and end up working at OXXO on the night shift. Bravo!

The more people use it, the more UBER's there will be in the area. People truly can get by without a car around here now. I still have no idea how they make any money though. A trip to the airport comes in at 189 pesos. That would hardly pay for the fuel.......

CanuckBob wrote:The more people use it, the more UBER's there will be in the area. People truly can get by without a car around here now. I still have no idea how they make any money though. A trip to the airport comes in at 189 pesos. That would hardly pay for the fuel.......

Once at the airport it puts them at a prime spot for picking up more fares

CanuckBob wrote:The more people use it, the more UBER's there will be in the area. People truly can get by without a car around here now. I still have no idea how they make any money though. A trip to the airport comes in at 189 pesos. That would hardly pay for the fuel.......

I've wondered that too. I think the profit margin is fairly low and they depend on volume. Which is good for us. I bet at the end of a busy day they do ok financially.

Uber's become the generic trademark—right up there with Kleenex and "Google it"—for using your phone to get into strangers' cars.

But like most cheap commodities, what you're paying for the sausage might not reflect the actual cost it takes to make it.

Transportation industry expert Hubert Horan is building a case for why Uber will never become a profitable company on the Naked Capitalism blog. One of the most eyebrow-raising statistics, as gleaned from investor reports, is how little riders are paying of the true cost of their trips: "Uber passengers were paying only 41% of the actual cost of their trips; Uber was using these massive subsidies to undercut the fares and provide more capacity than the competitors who had to cover 100% of their costs out of passenger fares."

Viejito has made a good point: that is the traditional way to damage the competition, and if wiped out, it leaves a clear field for taking over the function, raising the prices and gouging the consumer. This may or may not be the grand plan.I have a really dumb phone and can't use Uber anyway, but I can see why those who do are happy at present.

CanuckBob wrote:They say the same thing about Amazon, Facebook, etc. Not gonna happen as someone else will soon come along.

...except that it seems that Amazon and Facebook are occupying the catbird seats in their enterprises, with no real competition in sight. Basically, it has the look and feel of "take no prisoners" Capitalism. Whether I like to see that or not makes no difference to the outcome.

Good conversation! Obviously in the business of providing transportation services, Uber has a different business model than taxi, hence reducingoverhead cost.It might take awhile for Uber to cause much damages to taxi.A lot of competition in this business such as Lyft and the like.LLiving

LLiving wrote:Good conversation! Obviously in the business of providing transportation services, Uber has a different business model than taxi, hence reducingoverhead cost.It might take awhile for Uber to cause much damages to taxi.A lot of competition in this business such as Lyft and the like.LLiving

Well being that the local taxi service is way overpriced, basically nonexistent after 6:00pm and totally unreliable when you do call them it won't take much to topple them.

Are Uber drivers required to complete a minimum number of trips/hours in a given time period? Is it feasible that some drivers would only pick up occasional convenient trips to offset costs that would be incurred by them independent of Uber? I'm thinking of something like a commuter who would make just two convenient pickups per day. Such a driver could justify a lower profit margin.